18
year old twin sisters, Lucy & Maria Aylmer, from Gloucester are
non-identical twins. While Lucy (left) has fair skin and straight ginger
hair, Maria (right) has a darker complexion with curls. The college
students were born with radically different colouring thanks to a quirk
of their mixed-race parentage. Their mother Donna is half Jamaican and
their father Vince is white.
Their mother was
astonished when she first saw the twins, as nothing on the scans had
prepared her for their different skin tones
Fair-haired
Lucy, who lives with her family in Gloucester, said: ‘It was such a
shock for her because things like skin colour don’t show up on scans
before birth.
'So she had no idea that we were so different. When the midwife handed us both to her she was just speechless.’
Their
mother, who is 47 and a warehouse worker, and their 53-year-old father,
who works as a scaffolder, split up after the twins were born.
The 18-year-olds have three older
siblings, George, 23, Chynna, 22, and Jordan, 21. Lucy said: ‘Our
brothers and sisters have skin which is inbetween Maria and I. We are at
opposite ends of the spectrum and they are all somewhere inbetween.
‘But my grandmother has a very fair English rose complexion, just like mine.’
She
added: ‘No one ever believes we are twins. Even when we dress alike, we
still don’t look like sisters, let alone twins. Friends have even made
us produce our birth certificates to prove it.’
Certainly
at school there were no problems mistaking the twins for one another –
and no way of playing tricks to confuse their classmates.
Lucy
said: ‘We were in the same class, but no one had a problem telling us
apart. Twins are known for swapping identities. But there was no way
Maria and I could ever do anything like that.
‘Most
twins look like two peas in a pod – but we couldn’t look more different
if we tried. We don’t look like we have the same parents, let alone
having been born at the same time.’
The
twins’ interests are as different as their looks. Lucy studies art and
design at Gloucester College whilst Maria studies law at Cheltenham
College.
Lucy
explained: ‘Maria was outgoing whilst I was the shy one. But Maria
loves telling people at college that she has a white twin – and I’m very
proud of having a black twin.’
